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We’re always thrilled to get some recognition for what we’re doing and that’s been happening more and more. We just found out that we’re going to be included in the prestigious 2017 Good Food Org Guide presented by The James Beard Foundation and Food Tank (we were in the 2016 Guide as well).

We announced #GiveHealthy in March and the #GiveHealthy movement launched at the Broccoli City Festival in Washington DC on May 6, 2017. The Festival is about many things, including great music, culture and social impact. And its about healthy food access, particularly in urban areas. A perfect place to launch our movement to change the most common form of giving in the US so that everyone donates healthy food. Some pretty cool shots of people getting excited and having fun at the #GiveHealthy launch!

I love Samuel L. Jackson – no matter the quality of the movies he’s been in (from not so good to magnificent) he’s always been an actor to watch. Combined with the brilliant “What’s in your Wallet?” tag line, Capital One has spawned a marketing juggernaut. I don’t know how much money they’ve spent on the campaign – but it hasn’t been cheap. My guess is worth every penny for them, though

I have a Capital One card and a few others, too. I have to say that Capital One’s services, from their website to their communiques, are top shelf and make for a terrific customer experience – the others have a lot to do to catch up.

I was thinking about marketing and experiences the other day when I caught an absolutely cool story of two NJ teens who decided to help people facing hunger. Watch the video that captures the essence of why people like to people struggling with a sandwich instead of giving them money. Simply put, its a better experience. And if you’re able to tell a compelling story in an easy to understand way – you don’t have to spend the money Capital One does to get noticed. This video has gone viral with the most recent count at over 8 Million views. Wow!

If you watch the video – it will make you feel good – and it should. I’m always inspired seeing young people thinking outside of themselves and doing something about it. Unfortunately, the food they are distributing (McDonald’s hamburgers) while I’m sure causing high fives in McDonald’s marketing department, capture perfectly the dilemma people experiencing food insecurity face – lack of access to healthy food. McDonald’s food is cheap but its also not very healthy. Better than nothing? Maybe. But that question poses a false choice. Wouldn’t it be better to provide these sames folks with some apples or bananas – or maybe a healthy sandwich?

People don’t donate McDonald’s burgers to food drives but they tend to donate a lot of other food that’s in the same ballpark – not very healthy. We’re continuing to beat the drum so people know they can donate healthier food – food that will have a better impact. We enable people to have a great donation experience – knowing exactly how they are helping and enabling them to help in the smartest way.

The next time you see a food drive, ask the people running it or the people donating “What’s in it?” If its not healthy food, tell them a little bit about Amp. I wish I could say that Samuel L. Jackson told you so – but I can’t – you’ll just have to say its me.

Food Day is designed to inspire people to eat healthier food and to work to change our country’s food policies (hint: they currently stink…). The idea is to have people and groups do things on Food Day to create awareness of the need (and benefits) of healthier eating and doubly to create awareness that Federal policies have an enormous influence over what we consume. Many of those policies are pointing in the wrong direction – encouraging people to eat the wrong food. Incredible, but true.

Amp is proud to be a Food Day national partner – we have co-organized the REAL Food Drive – and collaborate in other ways with both Food Day and many members of the Food Day community.

For us, Food Day is a wake up call. There are identifiable reasons why more than half of all adults are diabetic or pre-diabetic and why so many Americans are obese. The most obvious one is the food we eat. “You are what you eat” is simple wisdom and the results speak for themselves. It is, of course, more complicated than that – our own government has food policies that have enormous influence over the food that’s available to eat and the guidance we receive about what constitutes a healthy diet. Unfortunately, government policies in these areas are influenced by special interest groups whose interest is making and selling more food that’s not good for us.

The good news is that change is afoot. More and more people are waking up to the fact that we’ve got to make changes. Individuals are voting with their dollars to purchase healthier food in lieu of unhealthy food. It’s why McDonald’s is selling fewer Big Macs and supermarkets are selling more organic food. That’s heartening. But its still just a start.

On Food Day (and maybe on many of the days following Food Day), do your self a favor. Trade in the candy bar or piece of cake for a juicy apple. Skip the potato chips and have some carrot sticks instead. Your body will thank you for it

The NY Times just published a depressing article that noted despite an increasing amount of information about what we should more of (and less of) to be healthier, many people still ignore that advice.

What should we eat more of? Real Food, and that’s the reasoning behind the Real Food Drive Campaign – to turn food drives into efforts that result in healthy food donations, instead of the usual stuff – highly processed cans of non-perishable food. People struggling with food insecurity also struggle with poor health – obesity, diabetes, hypertension, etc. – due in large part to a lack of access to healthy food.

If your organization is thinking about a running a food drive this fall – join our campaign! There’s no cost and you’ll get to raise lots of healthy food.

We have too many campaign partners to name here, but several are especially worth noting.

And, of course….

These terrific organizations are all working towards getting us all to eat healthier food for all of the benefits that come with it. Our connection is that we all recognize that so many people donate food to food drives with the best of intentions – we want to ensure those good intentions create the best impact. We have a growing number of groups around the country who have joined the campaign and who are running healthy food drives. Very exciting!

Interested in finding out more? Send us an email at realfoodteam@ampyourgood.com

This is a pretty big deal for us – our first nationwide campaign. Our goal for the campaign is to raise lots of healthy food for a number of food pantries and soup kitchens across the country and to create awareness that there is a new way to run a food drive to amplify its impact.

We’re thrilled to be partnering with Food Day – and working with Lilia Smelkova and Emily Snyder. And we’re doubly thrilled to have a great set of non-profit partners – Change Food, Foodtank, the National Association of Nutrition Professionals, Curbing Hunger and the National Association of Health and Fitness, among others.

We’re also excited about some of the new food drive concepts that we’ll be testing out – organic food drives, food drives that reduce food waste and food drives that raise restaurant quality meals.

Over the next six weeks or so, we’ll be working hard to solicit organizations planning their food drives to make them REAL. If you or your organization are thinking about a food drive – contact us. We’ll help you make it better.

It seems like there isn’t a day that goes by without some type of announcement or event that points to the public becoming more conscious of the connection between diet and health. Providing people with a way to help those facing hunger with higher quality food seems like such a no brainer. The size of this campaign is related to that.

Nearly all of us are familiar with the good old fashioned food drive. Most of us have donated canned or boxed goods at one time or another – to a drive sponsored by our company, our church, our school or some other organization we are connected with. In fact, in the US, people make billions and billions of food donations each year, making it one of the most popular forms of giving. All of those food donations have one thing in common – they are non-perishable. They need to be because they are going to sit in a collection box for awhile before they get to help someone.

Amp Your Good has reinvented how food drives work with an online giving model called Crowd-feeding. Organizations use our crowd-feeding website to run their food drives. People who want to support a drive do it by purchasing the food they want to donate right at our website. We deliver the food for them directly to the food pantry, shelter or soup kitchen they are supporting. There’s no collection box so no chance of food donations spoiling.

And that means something radical – it means that instead of donating non-perishable food, people can donate perishable food – REAL Food – fruits and vegetables, whole meals and other healthy food. It means organizations can sponsor REAL Food drives with very specific goals – to raise organic food, locally grown produce, restaurant quality food and other types of REAL food. It also means that food drives can be used to support other good causes – things like local farming, reducing food waste or protecting the environment.

But most of all, it means that food drives can be used to ensure that people struggling with hunger get the food they really need. It’s a sad fact that the rates of diet related disease and conditions among the 50 Million people (US) facing hunger are astronomical – diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer are rampant. While there are many contributing factors, lack of access to healthy food is the biggest one. REAL Food Drives can help move the dial on this problem in a big way.

Traditional food drives have a long history and reflect the deep interest people have in helping those struggling with tough times. But, as they say, “The times, they are a-changin.” There is a huge shift in people’s food preferences towards healthier food coupled with incredibly fast growing demand of food that can be purchased online. We developed Crowd-feeding to leverage these trends for the benefit of those facing hunger. Crowd-feeding enables everyone to amplify their good intentions so that food drives and food donations can have the best impact.

So, what the fork is a REAL Food Drive? It’s a food drive that’s cool. It’s cool because it’s environmentally friendly, healthy, easy and convenient. It’s cool because it can be organic, it can support local farming, it can be vegan. It’s cool because it’s transparent, smart and it’s social. But most of all, it’s cool because it gets the right kind of food to the people who really need it. It raises the kind of food you can stick a fork in.

If your organization is planning a food drive or the next time you’re planning to donate to one, make it REAL.